California Fly-Drive advice needed.

Ferris

Hi guys,

The girlfriend and I are thinking of going for a flydrive holiday in California/Nevada in Aug/Sept. Anyone have experience of a similar trip?

It'd be great to hear any advice about routes/flights/accom/car hire.

We want to see San Fran, LA, San Diego, Yosemite, Nevada and the Grand Canyon if possible.

Also is two weeks enough or is it better to go for three?

Cheers.

paulanthony

Well you certainly won't get all of that done in 2 weeks!
Went for three weeks last summer and managed to take in San Fran, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Pacific coast and then back to San Fran.

If you havn't been before I'd spend about 5 days in San Francisco, a couple of days in Yosemite and 4 days in Las Vegas. To see the grand Canyon I'd take a day trip from Vegas on an organised tour. We did this and it worked out much better as you get it all done in a day on an air conditioned coach rather than spending 2-3 days driving yourself to do the same thing. If you book tickets online before you go you will get them half price.

San Diego is supposed to be great and well worth spending as long as possible there.

A lot of people seem to be disappointed with LA as they find it rough, dirty and hard to come to terms with as its more of a sprawl than a city with a city centre.

You need to allow plenty of time for driving, it takes longer than you think. The speed limits [/I]are lower than here.

If you want to see all of these places I would suggest flying to San Fran, renting a car there (not at the airport but when you're leaving at one of the downtown garages as parking in the city will cost you about $30 a day and you don't need it. The transport system in SF is great fun). I would then drive to Las Vegas via Yosemite.

I would leave your car back in Vegas and then get an internal flight to San Diego or LA which are near to each other. Then fly home from LA or San Diego. Internal flights can be very reasonable. Try Delta, Southwest or JetBlue.

Give me a shout if you have any other questions.

Enjoy.

Cork_Rebel

Hey Ferris

Doing the exact same plan around aug/ sept for 3 weeks. Aerlingus flights seem to be going up by the week. We booked into SF and out LA.

Good advice by the sounds of from Paulanthony.

Paulanthony, did you book the canyon part off a random website? Is the helicopter option pricey?

Hotels on the SF to LA seem pretty pricey and even in San Diego, we were hoping to spend a few days in san deigo at the end by the beach, any suggestions as to where to try. Tried looking at condos, guesthouses and hotels.. all pretty pricey for anything that has 4 walls and AC.

Yosemite is supposed to be well worth a trip. We're booking a 3 day camping trip from San Fran to the park.

Manic Moran

Even Californians have been known to look at a map of the place and think "Ah, I'll just drive from this town to that town. They're right next to each other on the map" without understanding the true scale of the place.

Just driving from San Francisco to LA will take up most of your day. It takes me over ten hours (stopping only for fuel and meals) to get from San Jose (An hour South of San Francisco) to Las Vegas. SJ to Reno (Northern Nevada) is closer to a four-hour haul.

Paul is correct: You're looking at trying to get too much into your two weeks, I think. I think he's also hit the nail on the head with "Skip LA". Yes, the waterside nightclubs have serious numbers of hot women. Can't argue that. But there's not much else there. (Vegas has also serious numbers of hot women)

Fly to SF, spend a few days there without a car. You won't need it. Get a car for the next few days, hit the Marin Headlands (Muir woods), the Wine Country, Monterey/Big Sur or Geyser territory if you want, then drive down to Yosemite. Spend a couple days there, then continue the drive to Vegas. You'll know when you hit the NV state line: A town will appear in the middle of the desert where there is no justifiable reason for a town. Then you will hit craploads of billboard all advertising vegas shows or places to shoot machineguns. The idea of dropping the car in Vegas and flying to wherever is not a bad one. Alternatively, drive to SD (if you still have time) and fly to SFO or wherever it was you landed.

The speed limits are lower than here

Depends on where. There's no 'standard' speed limit per se. Motorways in the city areas usually have a 55mph limit. I-5 from Sacramento to LA is usally 75mph, which itself is something of a recommended guideline. People usually cruise at between 80 and 90. I don't know why they even bother posting speed limit signs in Nevada.

NTM

paulanthony

I think it was looktours.com that we booked with...

conor_mc

We did LA - Yosemite - SF last year on our honeymoon. LA is trashy and I thought I'd hate it but..... it was kinda fun. We only had a couple of days there so we did the tourist-trappy things like Universal Studios (we stayed out there), Hollywood Blvd, the stars homes tour up around Beverly Hills. You have to be open-minded about it, if you're gonna look for faults (pardon the pun) you'll find them.

Yosemite is simpy amazing - the view from Glacier Point is mind-blowing - it's like a massive painted canvas in front of you, it's hard to take in the scale of it. We stayed at the Tenaya Lodge at Fish Camp.... lovely hotel, but be warned that service is exceptionally friendly but almost mind-bogglingly incompetent. If you didn't laugh, you'd cry. It was like Manuel from Fawlty Towers! That said, I'd still go back there... go figure?!?!?

We just couldn't get into San Francisco - don't know if it where we stayed or what, but we just didn't get it. I'd go again for Alcatraz, brilliant trip, but other than that, meh! We went on to New York afterwards which was great. Oh, there is a bar around Union Square called Lefty O'Doul's - we had a great night there, they had a guy there playing the piano who was great craic.

So in short, don't be too quick to dismiss LA, Yosemite is fantastic and SF is probably great too but we just didn't get into it.

And get Satnav - an absolute must if you're driving over there.

hot fuss

OP, we actually did that in two weeks last summer but spent another week in San Diego at the end

We flew into SF - deadly city. We did a day trip to the Sonoma Valley during our few days in SF which was fab. From there we drove to Yosemite - definitely highlight of the trip - amazing place. We spent two nights there and then drove back to the coast stopping in Monterey and Big Sur before heading onto LA. We spent a few days in Santa Monica which I loved despite most people hating LA. From there we drove to Vegas where we spent three nights and did a day trip to the grand canyon from there. That is an absolute must see - fantastic.

We then flew to San Diego where we spent a week in La Jolla before driving to LA and flying back from there.

I would definitely recommend everywhere we saw. It was our honeymoon and was the best trip I've ever been on..

Cork_Rebel

Hot fuss, did you hotel it in Santa Monica and down the coast in Monterey.. even with the weak dollar hotel prices are crazy money, $300/400 for one night in 3* hotel.. and not even a rasher sandwich thrown in..

We heard good things about Yosemite aswell.. we're booking a 2 night camping trip with these guys, can't wait for it..
http://www.incadventures.com/trips/yosemite/yosemiteescape.php

hot fuss

Hiya

We did indeed.. We stayed in the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica which was very swish but it was our one splash out of the holiday and we booked through expedia so it actually wasn't that expensive - bloody gorgeous though!!

This place in Monterey though was a brilliant find though.. http://www.sanddollarinn.com/ I think it was 130 dollars for a room but it was really spacious, you got a (basic) brekkie and you could walk into the town centre in about five minutes. I couldn't believe it because accommodation everywhere was so expensive and this place was really nice and cheap too..

We stayed in this place too which was quite reasonable http://www.bigsurriverinn.com/

Very rustic and basic but nice and atmospheric and a good spot to explore some of the national parks in Big Sur from..

Zaph

If you're looking for somewhere decent to stay in Monterey try the Colton Inn. Unfortunately their website doesn't have prices for some reason, but it was a nice hotel and great value compared to other hotels in the area that we looked at. It's in a quiet part of town, but within waling distance of the town centre.

Cork_Rebel

Cheers

Is Big Surr worth a visit?

Anyone stay in Venice Beach? Santa Monica is pricey but guess its a good base for Hollywood and beach etc.

Manic Moran

I don't know if I'd hit Big Sur just for the sake of hitting Big Sur. If you're driving along US-1, then it's certainly worth the stop-over, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to see it.

NTM

Zaph

As you're doing that drive anyway you might as well go along the Pacific Coast Highway if you're not in a hurry, it's a nice trip and Big Sur is pretty scenic. The one thing you must see on that stretch is Hearst Castle, it's a pretty spectacular and completely over the top mansion built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.